Supreme Court to hear plea of editor in case related to playing of doctored clip of Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court agreed to hear on Friday a plea of an editor of a TV news channel challenging the summons issued to him for playing a doctored clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during the telecast of a programme on July 1.

A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli was urged by senior lawyer Siddhartha Dave that the matter be listed urgently as the editor of the channel has not been protected.

He noted that the news anchor (Rohit Ranjan) of the channel has been granted protection against coercive action in the matter. The bench agreed to hear the plea on Friday.

A vacation bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and J K Maheshwari on July 8 had granted relief to Ranjan and restrained various state authorities from taking coercive steps against him in connection with multiple FIRs for playing a doctored clip of Gandhi.

While granting the interim protection to the anchor, the bench had also issued notices to the Centre and states of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh seeking their responses on Ranjan's plea for quashing of complaints or FIRs concerning the telecast.